Christmas Cupcakes

The Christmas cupcakes are made with mulled wine and have a chestnut butter frosting. They taste like little bites of Christmas!

Christmas cupcakes made with mulled wine will have Santa begging for more (he likes his wine, you know – why do you think he has such a ruddy complexion?).

These Christmas cupcakes have a complex adult taste, but they are sweet, moist, and festive enough to serve to the entire family.

The only problem I had with my Christmas cupcakes was that the recipe only made twelve. I would highly recommend doubling it – they are that good! One warning though, the wine flavor is not overpowering. Don’t go in expecting a heavy hit of wine flavor.

A Note About Christmas Cupcakes and Me

Photo credit: TVparty.com

I don’t celebrate Christmas. As a child, I did not ever put out cupcakes for Santa (or cookies for that matter). The staging of this photo was the first time I ever wrote a “For Santa” sign. However, as a Jewish child, I did believe in Santa.

For some reason, I had a stuffed Rudolph doll. I lived in New York, but we always went to Florida to stay with my grandparents over Christmas (I know – how stereotypically Jewish can you get!). On Christmas Eve, I would always take my reindeer doll and set it by the door to the condo to make sure that Rudolph could go out and help Santa deliver toys to the Christian kids.

Before Making Mulled Wine Cupcakes

Before making mulled wine cupcakes, make sure you’ve made some mulled wine. Duh! Check out my post on mulled wine for instructions.

Mulled Wine Cupcake Recipe

I based the cupcake recipe on my Hokey Pokey cupcakes. They were so yummy that I thought they would be a good starting point. Here is the adapted recipe:

Chestnut Butter Frosting

Notes

Mulled Wine Syrup

I drizzled some mulled wine syrup over each frosted cupcake. This is by no means necessary, but it's a nice splash of red and it tasted quite good. To make the syrup, combine 1 cup of mulled wine and 1 cup of sugar and bring to a boil. Lower the heat and let the mixture simmer for about 10 minutes.

You say, “the wine flavor is not overpowering.” I say it wasn’t really present at all, but that didn’t prevent me from enjoying the lovely cupcake. Good cupcake, but outside of the drizzle on top, not very wine flavored.